New Chip For Proposed Square Kilometer "Telescope"

CSIRO has made a new chip for the Square Kilometer Array (SKA). A decision on where the SKA will be located, Australia or South Africa, has yet to be made. The new telescope array will analyse data from small radio dishes spread over a 3,000 kilometer area.

Silana is working with CSIRO on the chip made of silicon-on-sapphire (SOS). It is designed for the mid-band range (500MHz - 2GHz). The unit is a one piece integrated circuit board replacing the multi-unit board previously used for this process.

The new SKA "telescope" will be the largest ever built and it will give high resolution images of distant parts of the universe. Though the array will evaluate a wide range of frequencies, the mid-range is important as it is the emission line for hydrogen which gives the distribution of galaxies and stars.